what to make of school report?

[emd4]

hi i posted here a few weeks ago,
i just wanted to say thankyou to everyone who encouraged me to get a second opinion. we had an appoinment through within a couple of days for last week.

what a change a good paed can make!
appointment was 3 hours! she watched him and asked me questions and read reports from school, gp, early years. he had to do all sorts puzzles, games etc.

anyway my question was about the school report. i was surprised how bad it was. it had the development age hes working at for different areas. just wondering if anyone knew anything about these? i was led to believe he should be working in the 40-60 months stage.

he is 55 months, and in reception

the stage below was 30-50 months. which he got a lot of and a couple of 22-36 months and one 16-22 months.
none in the 40-60 months.

anyway so how do these work, if hes not in the 40-60 group does that mean hes at a level below 40 months? if so why does the group below go upto 50 months if the one above it starts at 40!
sorry if that makes no sense, it sooo confusing. im trying to work out how far behind he is at school.

any clues how to decode it?

also the report says that he does not approach other children and does not play with other children at school. im soo upset by this, i knew he had problems with social issues but i dont like to think of him playing on his own, problem is i dont think it bothers him if hes on his own,he likes playing with kids but only if they approach him and its his game. should i be stressed by this and really encourage him to be making friends or just leave him as he is, if hes happy? as he gets older is he likely to make friends or will he always be left playing on his own? anyone else delt with these sort of issues?

another thing is that hes not eating at school at all. im not sure why this is, im hoping its not because hes too stressed at school to eat, im thinking its more likely hes too distracted by a noisy dinner hall, he eats well at home, but always in his own time, noramlly takes him a good 20 mins to get round to eating but then he'll eat loads. any ideas that i could suggest to the school to encourage him to eat?

any advice appreciated
thankyou

W usethese develpment trackers in the setting where I work. They are actully really useful because if used regularly it is obvious which if any the child is behind in. They are split into areas of learning ie. physical, communication language and literacy, personal social, knowledge and understanding of the world,, problem solving/ numeracy and creative. Which I am sure you know.

In my experience being one age group behind would not automaticly[sp] indicate a sp need. Especially if your Ds is one stage behind in most things. Children vary massively in their development. That is why the cross over is there. Also if he is 55 months I wouldn't really be worried about him being in the 30-50 month stage. If he was in my key group I would be planning in some actiities from the next stage to see if he is ready to move forward.

Will pop back later and see if I can help anymore but Dd3 is nagging me to cut out the life sized self portrait she has painted this morning [thanx Mr Maker] .

I know it's difficult to think of him being on his own, but at the moment he might be ok with it. Starting school is a tough time especially for kids who don't find social stuff easy.

Dd3 does have some friends at school but she drives them potty wth her prescriptive[sp] play and bossiness. She rarely asks to see them out of school, we do try to have them round to play but it is never very successful.

The eating at school thing, could be because he is distracted or because he is struggling with the the noise and smells of the dining hall. They are pretty awful places and Dd3 suffered terrible at first. She is ok now but still says it's too noisy.
Does he get upset at lunch time or just not eat. Could you try doing a mini lunch where everything is bite sized so he can just pop it in his mouth without having to concentrate too much.

Hope I haven't gone overboard now but wanted to finish my reply.

The bands are the early years foundation stage assessments which you can look at online. They should break it down into the different parts of EYFS and you can ask the school to share it with you. DS is 6-12 months in some eg does not wave bye bye but 60 months in others counting etc. He's 48 months.

thanks for the replies.

definately not overboard!

i have had a look at the development satges online, thanks.

the funny thing is that other kids actually enjoy playing with ds, he's really imaginative and they sometimes join in with the idea, he just cant cope if they try and change the game. he doesnt know their names, i would love for him to ask to have someone round to play, but i feel thats a long way off. i had a big birthday party for him last year in the hope that it would really help him make friends but he didnt play with any of them and ran round doing his own think: like getting naked half way through i know i will have to get used to him being happy on his own-its just hard

they didnt put him in a band for social stuff because he is very different between adults and children. and in the community section said that they couldnt place him as he has no awareness of the needs of others and the community.

its good to hear he prob isnt too far behind. looking at the bands i dont think he's ready for the next stage (probably). they are focusing on behavior, social and safety problems in his IEP before they look at academic stuff, which im not sure is a good thing or not. i know they want his behaviour to improve which is why all the targets look at these areas, im just worried that these problems might never be completely resolved and by the time they change his targets he'll be even further behind in terms of learning.

its clear he is behind, he cant count past 2 in order yet, and he doesnt know his letters. which my 3 year old knows. im just coming to terms with the fact he is likely going to have problems with learning at school, which is hard as although id expected behaviour problems learning difficulties makes it seem worse somehow.

thanks for the replies

really appreciate it